


Dreams? Maybe

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-09-30
Updated: 1999-09-30
Packaged: 2018-11-20 11:58:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11335215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Questions and answers.





	Dreams? Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Dreams? Maybe. by Te

Dreams? Maybe.   
by Te  
12/98  
Disclaimers: They may not be mine, but they oughtta be.  
Spoilers: Dreamland.  
Ratings Note: NC-17 for poor language and m/m interaction.  
Summary: Questions and answers.  
Author's Note: I was talking with Pretty Pretty Dawn Pares about the ep, and this happened. Something of a departure.   
Acknowledgements: To Sister Blue for sweet, sweet darkness. To Dawn for fine audiencing, to Viridian for helpful suggestions, and to Iain for fine and thorough beta.   
Feedback: I'm willing to beg. 

* * *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Dreams? Maybe.   
by Te  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Langly was pissed.

That much was clear. While the man *always* seemed to be hooked to some invisible source of current -- looking at him had long since made John believe that those blissed-out "jackheads" in cyberpunk novels had to be a massive mischaracterization -- but this was different. 

Langly was simultaneously pacing feverishly through the cluttered little house, chewing his hair, and muttering darkly. And continuously. It would probably be soothing were it not for the small tornado of paper in his wake... Soothing. 

John shook it off, and forced himself to think of the inevitable foul mood that would fall on the place when it was time to clean up Langly's mess. He could, conceivably, just pick the papers up as Langly went, but then the other man would have to brush past him each time he finished a lap, look at him perhaps.

John didn't care to become the focus of Langly's anger; the younger man had his cruelty, and, lately, it was harder to shake it off. There would be an argument, and he'd gradually wear Langly down until he apologized -- but not until John *himself* had gotten angry. And there was nothing he'd ever been able to do about that...

Perhaps it was better to just give Langly his head. Perhaps his way was just *better*, period. After all, he got it all out... at whoever was available. Never had to go to bed red-faced, never had to punch at a pillow until he felt stupid and then more angry for being such a... such a damned pathetic wimp. Never had to hover outside another's door and wish he could knock.

Not another's. Langly's.

Frohike would be the more rational choice. The man was older, knew and understood so much that sometimes John wondered what it might have been like to have him as a brother, a young uncle. And the answer to that was never anything more dangerous than "better."

But it was always Langly's door at those times, and so he never knocked, and so he went back to his own room and waited for dawn to become too painful for him to leave his eyes open anymore.

There was good in that -- Langly always congratulated him when he slept late. Would clap him on the shoulder and make yet another snide remark about "escaping his narc roots." It was good to roll his eyes at Langly, too. He always grinned at it, and the crinkles at the corner of his eyes spoke of that sort of kindness he'd never be able to offer without the excuse of being a wise ass.

"... just sitting there, anyway?"

It took a moment to realize he was being spoken to.

"Jesus, Byers, who the fuck slipped you decaf this morning? You've been so fucking *calm* all day I want to goose you just to get a reaction."

"Hmmm...? You want to goose me?" John really wasn't all that dazed, but...

"What? No, dammit. I want-- I... Why am I the only one pissed here?"

Faint hint of a blush, a move backward when he was already several feet away... John never doubted that Langly knew what he wanted from him, but these painful little games of tease and retreat were all he had. It could have been worse.

"Because there's nothing to be pissed about." 

"Ah, and so that's why Mel stormed outta here like his goddamned ass was on fire."

"No, he left because he wants to frame the look Scully gave him for posterity."

A snicker, a muttered "tasty." John could give Langly safe ground, if that was what he wanted. Yes, it had been better to wait for Langly to come to him. Those few occasions Langly looked for comfort, he seemed to come to John instead of Frohike, but only in his own time. 

"But John, that fucking MIB *prick*--"

"Was just messing with our heads. C'mon, Langly, think about it. No matter how long he's been playing Mulder, he's still who he is. And the more upset people like us are, the less we can do to hurt him."

"But..." Langly trailed off, moved into a corner and shifted some old newsletters and half-melted motherboard off the fifth-hand easy chair beneath. It was the color of years-dried blood and the one time John had tried to sit in it he wondered if Frohike knew any chiropractors.

So, it was all Langly's. And he clearly needed its dubious comfort to think. John turned back to his monitor, began idly pawing through old military records in the hopes of finding some sign of "Morris Fletcher." A birth date, a social security number... the man would have major credit difficulties in no time. 

But there was no sign to be found, and his contact lenses were beginning to burn. Military *schools*, perhaps... The man had given every impression of having to spend the vast majority of his childhood in short pants. But a break first.

Easing up, John wondered when he'd first begun to, well, *ease*. Hours hunched over computers, day after day in chairs not quite at their best... He'd known precisely where the twinge in his back muscles would be located, and how that first burn of the chair's imprints on his thighs would feel. He was no old man -- a stretch and a jog would work out all the kinks -- but a little... care... was sometimes prudent. 

However, John was morbidly sure said care had come about some time around the inception of the Commodore 64. 

He flicked a glance at Langly, checking on him, to find the other man staring at him. He looked lost, and more than a little depressed. John checked his watch, shocked and angry at himself that he'd let Langly go nearly two and a half hours without... without *something*.

"Langly?"

"Mmm...?" It was only barely a question.

"Are you... what is it?"

"Why are you still here, John?"

John snorted and sat back down, letting the chair spin until he was facing the other man again. "Good question. We don't have *anything* resembling food in this place, do we?"

Langly's brow creased and he shook his head, focused for a moment on the second file cabinet, John's crumbling Risk board game, and then on some point just at the corner of the main table before finally reaching John's eyes.

"That's not what I meant."

"Oh, I... oh. What are you saying, Langly?"

"Why are you *here*?" It seemed as though the stress had required an actual, measurable level of effort, and John found himself shaking his head in denial of something he knew he didn't want to deal with.

"I don't know what you're talking about." 

"Stop it, just-- Dammit, John, what the hell is wrong with you, anyway? You're not *like* us, you could have... you could have done anything you wanted, been anything--"

"What makes you think I haven't?"

"Fuck." Langly stood up and began pacing again, hugging himself in a way that made John ache. He wasn't looking at him anymore. "Why don't you just fucking quit with this martyr bullshit, hunh?"

"Martyr?"

Langly froze, and seemed to visibly pull himself back, before giving up and spinning to face him, crowding his chair against the desk, breathing candy and acid in his face, arm braced on the table, body a tensed bundle of heat close enough to touch.

"*Martyr*. Some sonofabitch comes in and is kind enough to point out what a fucking... a fucking *waste* our lives are and you sit there... you just fucking *sit* there and talk about how he's just trying to break our fucking *resolve* like we're anything but a handful of aging nerds with no goddamned lives--"

"Langly--"

"No, dammit, *no*!" So close... "Is this what you needed to do, John? Give yourself something to believe in because your life was *already* empty? Where's your ex-wife, hunh? You never write to her anymore. I know, I noticed, I... you got ashamed of your so-called life but you were still too fucking *weak* to go out and get something better..."

It seemed almost instinctive to take the flash of anger at being so poorly understood, file it away. Langly paused for a heartbeat, seemingly irritated by the expression on John's face. Another misunderstanding, and this just wasn't the time to talk about Margot, and how Margot's new husband was... controlling... in ways that discouraged correspondence. And if there'd be another night with a red face and a battered pillow, so be it.

"... years, John. *Years*. And still you're sitting here, sipping your goddamned tea and just typing away. Is it that good a dream for you?"

Finally, a pause.

"Are you done?"

Langly was breathing hard, head moving up and down, but he was less nodding than... studying John. Knees to chest to face to chest and so on. He made some strangled noise, seemed about to pull away again, but John reached back to awkwardly grab his wrist. Held him there.

"Langly. *Langly*.... Listen to me, please? Listen?"

"What?" Low, hoarse. John held on to his warm, thin wrist and struggled hard against the urge to stroke it with his thumb. It would only appear soothing, but John had never let his body lie for him. After long moments his hand stopped aching, and the contact became only... good... again. 

"We've seen things, Langly. We *know* things about this country that would shake the foundations of every... every stupid *fucking* institution I ever wasted my time believing in. We've saved *lives*.... God, can't you see we've made a difference? What's so special about Morris goddamned *Fletcher* that we... that we're doing this now?"

Langly finally met his gaze, searched it for a stretch of moments so long that John felt himself moving close, breathing more shallowly. The rough, defeated sound of Langly's voice froze him, though. 

"It's not Fletcher. Christ, you're right, you're right and I'm sorry but it's not *Fletcher*, John. I'm just... I want..." 

Without warning Langly wrenched his hand away and stepped back. John stood to follow but the other man warded him off with a tight, controlled shake of the head. 

"Langly--"

"I know, John, I *know*. There's this... this little space between the bottom of my door and the floor and I can see you. I saw you all those nights, John, just standing there. But you never came inside.... You never come inside."

John felt himself blushing and turned away. His throat was tight and he'd never wanted to *run* so badly in his life. 

"And that's it. That's it right there. You'd never let yourself... dreams are only good when they don't get too real, right, John? Good enough to while away the hours between sleep that actually lets you *rest*, but as for anything else... Christ, why can't you just go?"

John was stunned, pulled back to a face so hurt it pulled the breath from his lungs, leaving him just short of gasping, gaping at Langly uselessly. 

"Years, John... *years* of watching you work, watching you fucking *charm* anything you want out of everyone who gets a look at your eyes, watching you stay, wondering what's taking you so long to get out there and do... and get everything you deserve from this life. I know you will someday, but the waiting... the waiting is fucking killing me."

"This... we..." 

It had been an admirable attempt to say something useful, but it died the moment John realized he was walking to the other man, faded to meaninglessness the moment he grabbed Langly's tee shirt in both hands and felt his knuckles graze warm flesh under the cotton.

"You... you don't know *shit*."

And he remembered kissing like this, desperate and clumsy and needing to get every last iota of sensation from the act, because there was no telling when he'd have the chance again. Cluttered closets and empty locker rooms and those, too, were lost. He *had* Langly, and John didn't think he'd be able to let go even if the other man were to take back everything and push him away. 

There was no resistance to his kiss, nothing but welcome for his hands as they roamed lean muscle under too many clothes. Wiry arms around his waist and a slick, warm tongue between his lips and Jesus but the contact, the heat --

John pushed closer, rubbed his body along Langly's until the action seemed to require too much concentration. Langly's hands were finally moving, restless, occasionally harsh, but needful in a way that spoke of nights alone better, perhaps, than the man himself could. He *wanted* this, wanted *John* and it was important that he let Langly know he was... there for the taking. 

John let himself relax a bit into the embrace, sucked gently on the other man's tongue and suddenly Langly's arms tightened around him and his kiss... his kiss was a ferocity of lips and tongue and teeth, breath-stealing and irresistible, broken only just long enough for a --

"John, I--"

\-- before Langly was backing him against the table and claiming his mouth again with the ferocity of opportunity, ripping at his suit jacket, giving up when it was just past his shoulders. John could feel the tremble in the fingers plucking at the buttons of his shirt and moaned into Langly's mouth.

This... this need was *God* and He was everywhere at once, in the thrust of blue-jeaned hips against the willing basket of his own, in the hand that couldn't stay at its task long enough to get more than a few buttons undone before slipping in and *pressing* against his chest. John was going to come in his pants from this, just this, and he didn't care at all.

Another broken kiss and the sound he made was high, shameless in disappointment, but Langly's mouth was moving lover, dragging down his cheek and then sucking hard at his throat. John found himself moaning nearly continuously, head thrown back in an effort to offer as much of himself as possible. 

His hands fluttered at his sides, useless, and he finally just gripped the table, an instinct to ground himself in reality, brand his palms with stress marks to prove --

"Langly!"

\-- and that was his hand on John's ass, *gripping* with a need for possession and pulling him hard against himself, biting down on his throat and thrusting trapped cocks together, a slide and jab of superheated flesh, hard and pulsing, again and again, never-ending and world-destroying. 

John's hands flew from the table at their own accord and settled themselves on Langly's shoulders with, apparently, their last bit of strength because he was helpless to this, if unafraid. 

And then there was the jet of warmth that left his counter-thrusts ragged and he knew Langly felt it because he was kissing him again, and swallowing his cries with another kiss, never stopping the snap and roll of his own hips until his own orgasm left him shaking and spent against John.

Langly might have been relatively small, but he was crushing what little air John could get right out of him. He pushed a little at the other man's chest and was muzzily shocked at the speed with which he drew himself up and... Not quite away --there was no precise loss of *contact* -- but the weight was gone, save for the curiously insistent push of his head against John's chest.

"Sorry, I didn't mean -- I'm such an *asshole*... those things I said... fuck."

And then the push, too, was gone, as Langly began to move himself off in earnest.

"Jesus, Langly, wait!"

John grabbed the other man's face, looked into still-darkened eyes and let out a breath.

"I'm not... I've wanted... I was... Langly. Langly, I'm not going anywhere, all right? I'm not. I wouldn't. I *couldn't.*"

Long pause while the other man continued to stare at him. Drink him down and John couldn't hold back a small noise at the sight. 

"Langly--"

"Not leaving, hunh?"

But before he could answer there was a gentle hand at his crotch, smoothing and sliding the wet, cooling semen against too-sensitive flesh. John groaned, wanted to bat the hand away, but Langly's smirk didn't reach his eyes, unreadable but blackening further. He groaned again and felt his eyes begin to slip shut.

"If you're staying, John..."

"Y-yeah?"

"We should probably get you cleaned up."

"A shower? A shower would be--"

Brief tightening of promise. "I'm not talking about a shower."

John hoped that all the answers Langly needed were in the reflexive buck of his hips, because he was honestly incapable of anything else.

Langly cocked his head, and his smile was both curious and a little sad. "What else have I been missing, John?"

The question was vague, hazy, and when John didn't answer, Langly removed his hand from his cock and threaded his fingers through John's own instead. Led him toward his room, but hesitated at the door.

"Wanna come inside, John?" Not looking at him, and there was no way to escape the responsibility of answering this time. 

"Yeah, yeah I do." 

~~~~  
End.  
~~~~


End file.
